Bricasti M1 vs DCS Debussy

4425 yes the Bartok does look awesome, in that same price range we have the Lumin X1 which also sounds awesome and the Lumin is one terrific sounding piece with a great feature set and series of strengths.

Had  a ton of experience with DCS in the past, and allways felt their products were on the more analytical side rather then musicality, if you want to hear every last bit of detail a DCS product is one of the best top notch build quality we hardly slam DCS but facts about platform to platform obsolesence is a good point if that matters to a potential buyer of one of these items.

The issues we raised before is platform evoluation, which Aqua is great a doing, vs DCS and a few others mentioned that did not offer real platform to plaform upgrades some of our products like the Lumin have a similar philosophy to DCS with an six to eight year life cycle. 

We have yet to do a shoot out between the DCS and the Lumin titans

We are going to be evaluating Rokna next it seems that they too make a very highly thought of dac for a somewhat sane price point for a reference grade dac.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua Hif, Lumin dealers


. 

 I have an old DCS Elgar/Purcell combo that has served me well for over 15 years. Love the sound as its faults are to the warm or soft side.  Picked up a Bricasti M1 and was blown away at how good it is. In fact I am committed to it and I have sent it in for the latest updates (MDX/Firmware).  
 I only do red book and the Bricasti M1 from a tech perspective seems to be a strong choice. If I utilized hi Rez (computer/network) files or streamed Tidal and its MQA formats I may have looked at other offerings.
 Its amazing that almost every forum thread I read has Audiotroy on it. It seems that I retail store owner would stay away from forums. Business is business and I guess it must work for them. Sad but it is what it is.
 I listen to opinions of end users and try to form a consensus. 
 
   

I heard some say the M1 and M3 sound a bit different but they are both very musical. Your comment is appreciated.

@hifipf  you got to admit @audiotroy is trying very hard to sell his products.  Based on what I've read from him Aqua or Lumin beats everything like DCS/MSB/Esoteric easily...(although he claimed he didn't try to do that but the intent can't be more obvious)  The manufacture(Aqua/Lumin) must love this guy as he devalued all other brands as much as possible.

The MDx upgrade in my system was huge improvement. Every aspect was improved in my M1. Most startling change was image improvement. Depth, width, and height is now just fantastic.  Nothing about the MDx upgrade was subtle. My M1 had the 1.3(?) firmware.